PROJECT DESCRIPTION HISTORY BY WIRELESS THE LOCAL HISTORY (MUSEUM) PROBLEM America is a huge patchwork quilt made up of tens of thousands of local regions and communities, each with its own unique history and story to tell which define it to its own people and to the outside world. Traditionally, such history has been collected by small local historical societies or individual historians and published only in local history forms, sometimes punctuated by annual festive observances. Local history tends to remain local, even though it contain lessons for all who encounter it. Sometimes, with a great deal of effort, such small communities manage to open a local history museum, manned by volunteers, usually operating on a shoestring budget, and would-be visitors are all too acquainted with the problem of such places being open, and staffed whenever the public wants to look in. Whether these visitors are casual travellers, or serious researchers. Such museums are partical solutions to spreading local history, but only among local visitors. Larger regional, thematic, state or national museums operate at a scale, often with appropriated funds or large endowments that permit them to be available year round, publish nationally, and gain recognition. But no state, or national museum can do justice to all the distinctive, local 'histories' that make up this richly diverse land within a state. So until now, really 'local' history has has to be visited physically to be accessible generally. WIRELESS INTERNET TO THE RESCUE Telecommunications technologies which have wide enough bandwidth to support multi-media activities, and yet whose capital equipment can be very economical in dollar terms to set up and support, can permit local history organizations to make their stories, collected data, views, people, including old timers, available to a global audience. The world wide web can now be affordably mounted on small computer systems running Linux, OS2, NT, or Macs connected to the Internet through local ISPs. With progressive use of video cams, digitized sound, as well as searchable text, local history can be made to come alive and be just as 'accessible' as are the better endowed state and national history centers. However the communications cost to link the local history museum, center, library to either the commercial gateways to the net, or even to the net via local colleges, can be prohibitive for small local organizations. Local loop costs can range upwards from $100 a month, and in rural or small town areas, to $300 or more for just a four-wire 56kbs link. With T-1 access reaching $1,000 a month. Unless the total cost to connect up local history sites to the Internet can be kept low enough, thousands of local history sites will never be connected to the global nets. No-licence wireless connections can be a helpful answer to this problem of such low cost 'last mile' connecting up to the world. If the connection is 56kbs or higher (needed for any true multi-media, or multiple simultaneous use connections) and there are no local RBOC loop costs then the online displays can be extended to historical scenes, artifacts, and places where data lines do not exist, as well as to a static web site on the museum premises. This project proposes to model such a solution. THE SPECIFIC HISTORY BY WIRELESS PROJECT The core proposal is for the $15,000 NSF Grant to pay for the wireless hardware - FCC Part 15 compliant spread spectrum radios - and associated peripheral equipment, a battery powerable (laptop) computer, attached digital camera, and software necessary to extend, from a base, in-Center, server-computer to both the ISP location, the artifact display areas, and, in mobile form for public access, from a variety of local public sites. The newly refurbished building that is in the last stages of becoming the Old Colorado City Historical Center - 1 South 24th Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and its supporting non-profit, tax-exempt Society, are ideally postured in 1996-97 to develop, over a two year period, and showcase a pilot project combining a History Center web site, wireless uplinks to both an Internet ISP as well as downlink outreach from the web site to the museum main room displays, and, in periodic mobile form, to the nearby public streets, library, schools, and public-traffic areas in the historic district. The Center, which combines a small museum, meeting, research, accessioning, and collection areas, and a secure 'computer room' is immediately adjacent to the original Colorado City 'main street' commercial district - a National Historic District since 1983, and the surrounding residential 'carpenter Victorian' neighborhoods, rich in local, visible, history, with their small library, schools, and other community places. The nominal distances across the entire 'westside' Colorado Springs area encompassing the the distances across the local history area is less than 2 miles, well within the reach of many 1 Watt FCC Part 15 no-licence wireless devices. The Center where the web site server and wireless terminus will reside is across the street from a small (Bancroft) park with an 1859 Cabin, one half block from a small Carneige public library, half a mile from a junior high school where Colorado history is taught, and one block from the corner of the 7 square block Old Colorado City National Historic District with 98 commercial renovated buildings in center of the original (1859-1917) Colorado City. The local area contains 137 years of rollicking frontier cowboy town, gold rush, Indian, Civil War, mountain man, politicking, railroad, saloon, gambling, horse-alley, log to Victorian, whoring, wet-versus-dry, gold mill, labor war, good folks, bad folks, the auto mechanic roots of the entire racing Unser clan, and working man's history. Unique, but local. And so far only spread by low tech online story-telling from Rogers Frontier Bar with modular RJ11 jacks at some booths. SUPPORT If the grant is made, donations of hardware, software, link services, and valuable technological expertise have been pledged to make the project possible. Funds sufficient to buy an NT 486 Server machine will be donated to the Center, which already has a lesser capable (286) microcomputer and printer. At least 56kbs TCP/IP connectivity to the Internet will be granted, gratis, to the Society by Old Colorado City Communications, whose premises is nearby, if a wireless device can be connected to its Routers (rather than a wired connection requiring a new dedicate telco circuits). The majority of all technical work setting up, configuring and troubleshooting the systems, and training less qualified Society members (several of whom have volunteered already) will be donated. The donated hardware value is estimated to be $6,000. The ISP service value (56kbs at $300 month) is $7,200. The professional wireless installation, configuration, and setup services by Old Colorado City Communications staff is valued at $5,000. The society will provide historical materials editing and presentation expertise, both from its volunteers, volunteers from local schools and colleges. An additional grant for $5,000 professional historic services will be made to the Colorado State Historical Society after the system is operating and real, which has already made one such grant for photographic collections, and has ample funds from state gambling tax revenues for others. The state will not grant for hardware or software. The combination of these tools and continued connectivity at a suitable bandwidth level will permit the development of a Virtual Historic Colorado City, for local, as well as remote access. A recent (May, 1996) society program for its membership showing the potential for a Cyberspace museum was very well recieved, with offers of assistance to such a project from both computer experienced and inexperienced members. A copy of the report on that presentation, as well as general information on the educational and research activities of the Society is enclosed. TECHNICAL PLAN The total system will be developed to provide: (1) Web displays of Colorado City's history in text and graphical form. (freely accessible) (2) RealAudio Internet sound-access system, with an oral history data base. (100 hours of taped interviews exist, but require conversion into digital form) (3) Research history data base searchable online. (of value to researchers) (4) CuSeeMe reflector software (to support the realtime video and audio) (5) Input mechanisms so that the public, either at remote, mobile laptop "on the street" locations, or in-center at the walk-up display room PC, can contribute raw history data on local history to the Society. (6) Links on the Center's web site to other local history, as well as national, web sites (such as the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum, Wyoming and the Will Rogers museum in Oklahoma) (7) Ability to order books, papers, and historical gifts by credit card, from the Society's small book store, over the net. (8) Clever simple animated displays on-web line on "How to Pan for Gold" and other pioneer skills. The Server, being approximately 1/3d of a mile from the premises of Old Colorado City Communications, can be reached by a pair of 115kbs spread spectrum Free Wave radios. Linking through OCCC ISP link to the Internet will insure bi-directional net access with no corresponding local loop cost. The IP addresses necessary will be provided by OCCC. An extension from the NT server by wireless LAN connected to a laptop computer equipped with a color Video cam, into the main display rooms can be rotated by the staff to point to various displays, which will be thereby accessible, real time, over the net. This will be the same laptop system used periodically (probably no more than once a month, average) for roaming, as described below. At all other times it will be set up internally, in the display room. The Roaming system, linked wirelessly, will be set up, periodically by Society volunteers, at key places during events commemorating Old Colorado City's colorful history - such as the 1859 Cabin in Bancroft Park which is staffed during Territory Days, St Patrick's Day Parade, Founder's Day, Pioneer Christmas, so that the public can 'access' the history from locations without usable phones. (these events draw over 250,000 people a year to Old Colorado City) It also will be carried inside the small local Carnegie library, for periodic public programs, as well as to bistros, gallery's and other local places where people gather publically, for mini-demonstrations and programs of local history, and history over the Internet by wireless. Periodically it will be set up in the small neighborhood Pikes Peak Bank lobby, for people to walk up and click on a local story or two. The bank is well within range, even of a wireless lan. RESEARCH AND EDUCATION The data base being built up by the Society will be accessible over the net, as well as by walk-up to the wirelessly extended system in the main display room - where the general public has access. The system - using the common interface of the World Wide Web, will also be used to 'collect' comments, facts, stories by those with access to the system - raw input of local history by both those with remote access, those visiting the Museum, and those 'on the street' who are invited to go online by a Society volunteer carrying around the Roaming History laptop. (20 years experience by the Society has shown that, since the original revitalization of Old Colorado City starting in 1976 - Colorado's Centennial year - many visitors who are descendents of pioneers try to contribute valuable knowledge from their family histories. But often only orally, where a volunteer tries to make notes. Direct online access, and text entry by visitors can improve that process greatly.) Since public schools in the Pikes Peak Region (400,000+ population) are rapidly being given classroom access to the Internet, the site can be especially valuable for Colorado History, both at the college and school levels. Some of that research well be able to be done remotely, because the server and data base will be accessible wirelessly, and some from the portable computer carried to westside schools, where Colorado History is taught in the 4th and 8th grades. The server will be connected directly wirelessly. The system can even be used for 'conducted online tours' by a narrator who can carry the system, pointing its camera at both history center displays as well as natural views (the hundreds of architecturally distinctive buildings in the immediate area - within one-half mile - of the radio base, and the natural surrounding and mountains, such as the visible 'Horse Alleys' of Colorado City, the gold mill and early railroad remains - all are 'visible' history) COST EFFECTIVENESS The secret to this technological model, is not just the favorable economics of the wireless, or the mobility it affords, giving the public essentially free access to the net, it is also the much higher bandwidth possible by the spread spectrum radios - with the low end expected to be 56kbs. Which makes the multi-media (voice and animation, as well as graphical content) displays work. The use of 28.8 modems over ordinary phone lines will not support properly the graphical and real-time audio and video data. While higher data-rate lines from the telephone company would not only be not-affordable by the Society, it would not afford 'portability' of the linked computer. DISSEMINATION OF FINDINGS Since this project involves the development and maintainance of a web site, the most effective, continuing, form of dissemination of the technical innovations involved in this History by Wireless project will be the inclusion of the project, its history, economics, progress, and lessons learned, on the same site itself. This is apart from the final written report on the project for the NSF. At least one article on the project will be written by the PI for submission to national museum periodicals, which will both inform professionals in the field, as well as point them to the site itself for first-hand looks at its success. PUBLIC ACCESS AND USER SUPPORT There will be no access fees associated with the Web site supported by the wireless connections. Thus the entire public will have access to the resources linked by the wireless. Everyone with the ability to go online for themselves from remote locations, visiting the museum personally, or in the public places where the Roaming system is set up, will be 'Qualified Internet Users' in the definitions of this grant. Since the display rooms of the History Center will always be staffed when the public is there, use of the access system by drop-in users will be aided and supervised by the staff. And only qualified (checked out) Society volunteers will be permitted to carry around and offer the use of the Roaming system off premises. TECHNICAL EXPERTISE AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT David R Hughes, lifetime founding member (1980) of the Old Colorado City Historical Society, and an elected Board member, has agreed to be the uncompensated Principal Investigator for this History by Wireless Project. As the Principal Investigator for the 1995-96 NSF Wireless Field Test for Education Project, ongoing, he posesses all the requisite skills for overseeing the two year development of this combining of Internet access, wireless data transmission, and imaginative multi-media presentation of local historical research and Society holdings. As a principal in the Old Colorado City Communications company he can insure continuing Internet access support. Among the members of the Society, including Board members, and volunteer supporters, drawing from a large pool of local Colorado Springs technological companies, government offices, and colleges and universities are a wide range of supporting skills which can assist in this project. Some Society members are active computer professionals. Especially can also be tapped both active high-school computer, and history students and their teachers to help out in this technological endeaver just as they have every year in the production of plays, decorating, and event-support, for the very, very popular "Old Colorado City" a center of much civic pride and volunterism. This will be excellent local training in history for computer-oriented students, some of whom think history is bunk, as well as for history students, who think computers are only for games. Although the 350 member Society has been in existance since 1980 and is IRS tax exempt, it has just completed acquiring and preparing its first History Center after a decade and a half of fund raising with all major funds going to the aquisition, restoration, renovation, and readying of the structure as a museum, meeting place, book store, and research center. Even though the majority of the dues-paying members to date have been older residents, and the Board of Directors have largely possessed traditional historical research and collection skills, since a few of the members were 'high tech' in skill and outlook, the Board set aside a complete 'computer room' in the original plans for the building, acting on general faith that computers and communications, somehow, could be used to help the Society research and better present its 'local' history gathered with so much effort over the last 20 years. The Old Colorado City Historical Society, an IRS 501C3 non-profit corporation, has an 11 elected member board, with four officers. It has been the applicant, recipient, and manager in the past 10 years of over $300,000 in private, State Historical Society, and Foundation (Gates, Boettcher, El Pomar) cash grants - for the acquisition, restoration, and refurbishing of its wholly-owned History Center. It is audited annually, and retains Kasten Accounting for bookkeeping, cash flow analysis, and official reporting requirements. It can readily manage the funds, and property, for this project. SUSTAINABILITY The goal of this project, besides presenting the local history to a global audience, and using the links to support remote volunteer work and historical research, is to develop an economic model which can be sustained indefinitely - with the long term cost being the commercial Internet connection. The key to this is the full development of local History Center business 'sponsors' who will be given a Web page in return for annual donations to the center. Already 8 local businesses have expressed a willingness to donate $250 a year each, for their own single web page on the History Center computer. A buildup of this 'sponsorship' will contribute to the ability of the Society to afford a seperate commercial connection by the end of the project phase. Reviewers can access a small, incomplete 'demo' of wireless access to such a museum, by http://192.160.122.3/occh/occh.htm This is not at the center, but on a wireless system operated by the proposed PI, nearby.